The Church – Called In

In a culture of extreme independence, it’s easy to feel as though we should make Christianity a solo sport. But, solo Christianity completely distorts the picture for the Church in which Jesus had intended! Our heart at Hillside is that you find yourself in a community group, connected in such a way that you grow together as disciples and care for one another as an authentic family, like the Horstmann’s story below.

“We joined a community group over 5 years ago. While the group leadership had changed since we started attending, our sense of family continued to grow as some of our group members remained the same. We developed deep relationships while doing life with other growing families which gave us such joy as we celebrated new babies, new homes, new jobs, etc. We were also able to help each other through difficult times as well, feeling like this contributed to forming open and authentic relationships.

In the last year, the Lord continued to bring more and more people into our group, growing it to over 30 adults (along with their 30+ kiddos). The incredible thing was witnessing the group explode but still feeling as though everyone was making connections. As our group began to see the need to multiply, we began to feel the call to become CG Leaders. At first, we were hesitant. We really enjoyed our group and the relationships we’d spent half of a decade developing. We were comfortable and feared the unknown of staying in touch if we left. Initially, we thought we’d lead a portion of this large group and be able to continue with relationships already cultivated, but God had other plans!

After mulling it over with Dave Schaffer and praying about the decision to become CG Leaders, we felt such peace in knowing the Lord was leading us to take this next step in faith. We became leaders in October of 2019 and much to our surprise, our area held a list of people longing to feel connected in authentic community. We’re excited about this journey and look forward to developing new relationships and building on existing ones in our new group. We would encourage those who may be on the fence about joining a CG to step out in faith and see what the Lord has in store.”